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Cicely Watson, a crusader for educational reform in Ontario

An expert in educational planning, Cicely Watson pushed the province to eliminate Grade 13 and played a leading role in the development of Ontario’s college system. She died last month, age 94.

Cicely Watson, second from right in this 2001 photo, was part of a group of female professors who fought the University of Toronto for back pay and pension adjustments, alleging the university had unjustly benefited from decades of paying women less than men. (Colin McConnell / Toronto Star file photo)

By Ron CsillagSpecial to the Star

Sun., Jan. 10, 2016

What was wrong with Grade 13? Everything, pretty much.

Students were popping tranquilizers and antidepressants. Anxiety was rampant. It was “a nerve-racking, useless year,” griped one student. “Please do something about it!”

Grade 13, another suggested, was “a monster.”

This was no statistical blip. More than 80 per cent of the roughly 1,300 Ontario students surveyed in Prof. Cicely Watson’s groundbreaking mid-1960s study lamented that Grade 13 was an overloaded, exam-obsessed pressure cooker.

Watson was an early advocate for the grade’s abolition. But she had to wait.

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It wasn’t until 1984 that Queen’s Park began replacing Grade 13 with the Ontario Academic Credit, a series of courses needed for graduation. The OAC acted as a fifth year of secondary education until it, too, was phased out in 2003.

More than a crusader for education reforms, Watson, who died last month in Toronto at age 94, relied on hard data to back her research. She was a pioneer in the field of educational planning, using population projections and demographic models to map and develop systems of education for children and adults and help school boards anticipate enrolment.

Watson was prescient in predicting the “baby bust” of the 1970s, when Ontario’s lowered birth rate (owing probably to the new birth control pill) would translate into hundreds fewer classrooms.

The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education building on Bloor St. W., under construction in 1969. When OISE was created in 1965, Cicely Watson was appointed founding chair of its department of educational planning, which had an international influence. (Fred Ross)

Watson was also among the founders of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. “In many respects she was the institute’s matriarch,” noted Glen Jones, OISE’s interim dean.

When OISE was created in 1965, Watson was appointed founding chair of its department of educational planning, the first academic unit of its kind in the world.

“The department was not only important for educating the next generation of planners in Canada; it became a training ground for educational leaders in many parts of the world, especially Africa,” Jones added.

“She was a department chair and policy adviser during a time when these roles were almost always assumed by men, and there is little doubt that she was a role model for many aspiring female academics and academic administrators.”

Watson also played a leading role in the establishment of Ontario’s college system, writing reports on the need for students who aren’t cut out for university to still go beyond high school. Most colleges were founded between 1965 and 1967 when Bill Davis, then education minister and later the premier, tabled a bill to create a post-secondary educational system different from universities.

Today, there are 24 Ontario community colleges that enrol 200,000 full-time and 300,000 part-time students. They boast that 83 per cent of their graduates find work within six months.

In an email to the Star, Davis said of Watson: “I benefited greatly from her brilliant talent as Canada’s most prominent scholar in the field of educational planning.”

The Montreal-born Watson earned a PhD from Harvard University in 1951. Three years later, she was invited to address the first United Nations-sponsored World Population Conference in Rome. The conference resolved to create more experts in population trends.

Not long after that, Watson was hired as a lecturer at the University of Toronto’s department of educational research.

In 2001, the university settled a claim brought by Watson and three other female professors who were fighting for back pay and pension adjustments. The women alleged the university had unjustly benefited from decades of paying women less than men.

Throughout the difficult legal battle, the “exceedingly tough-minded” Watson illustrated that “it’s possible to be determined but civilized, considerate, well mannered, well spoken and thoughtful,” recalled her co-complainant, the noted scientist and educator Ursula Franklin.

While the terms of the settlement were confidential, dozens of retired female professors received enhanced benefits.

Watson is survived by three daughters she had with her husband, the late Frank Watson. To mark her 80th birthday, OISE established the Cicely Watson Graduate Scholarship.

Jones recalled that just a few months ago, Watson came into his office, closed the door and said, “I am here to tell you a few of the things you should be doing as dean.”

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